Aerial Photography
Cameras and video cameras can be launched on model rockets to take photographs in-flight. Model rockets equipped with the Astrocam, Snapshot film camera or the Oracle or newer Astrovision digital cameras (all produced by Estes), or with homebuilt equivalents, can be used to take aerial photographs.
These aerial photographs can be taken in many ways. Mechanized timers can be used or passive methods may be employed, such as strings that are pulled by flaps that respond to wind resistance. Microprocessor controllers can also be used. However, the rocket's speed and motion can lead to blurry photographs, and quickly changing lighting conditions as the rocket points from ground to sky can have an impact on video quality. Video frames can also be stitched together to create panoramas. As parachute systems can be prone to failure or malfunction, model rocket cameras need to be protected from impact with the ground.
There are also rockets that record short digital videos. There are two widely used ones used on the market, both produced by Estes: the Astrovision and the Oracle. The Astrocam shoots 4 (advertised as 16, and shown when playing the video, but in real life 4) seconds of video, and can also take three consecutive digital still images in flight, with a higher resolution than the video. It takes from size B-6-3 to C-6-3 Engines. The Oracle is a more costly alternative, but is able to capture all or most of its flight and recovery. In general, it is used with "D" motors. The Oracle has been on the market longer than the Astrovision, and has a better general reputation. However, "keychain cameras" are also widely available and can be used on almost any rocket without significantly increasing drag.
There are also experimental homemade rockets that include onboard videocameras, with two methods for shooting the video. One is to radio the signal down to earth, like in the BoosterVision series of cameras. The second method for this is to record it on board and be downloaded after recovery, the method employed by the cameras above (some experimenters use the Aiptek PenCam Mega for this, the lowest power usable with this method is a C or D Motor).
Read more about this topic: Model Rocket, Instrumentation
Famous quotes containing the words aerial and/or photography:
“Every year lays more earth upon us, which weighs us down from aerial regions, till we go under the earth at last.”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)
“If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)